Hospital breaks law on health and safety
HEALTH bosses have been ordered to make improvements to a ward at Scotland’s beleaguered flagship superhospital amid fresh fears over patient safety.
Inspectors warned that the ventilation system at a unit treating kidney transplant and cancer patients breaches health and safety law and is putting people at risk.
Concerns have been raised about Glasgow’s Queen Elizabeth University Hospital (QEUH) after the deaths of two patients this year.
They included a ten-year-old boy who died after testing positive for a fungus linked to pigeon droppings.
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde (NHSGGC) confirmed it had received the improvement notice from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) on Christmas Eve.
The notice states the hospital has failed to ensure the ventilation system within Ward 4C is ‘suitable and sufficient to ensure that high risk patients who are vulnerable to infection are protected from exposure to potentially harmful airborne microbiological organisms’.
Hospital bosses have been working with the HSE in recent months and a meeting has been set up for the first week of January to discuss the improvement notice. It must make the improvements by March.
Ventilation units in wards treating very sick patients such as critical care should have a higher rate of air changes per hour than those in other areas, in order to give plenty of airflow and dissipate and evacuate airborne bacteria.
NHSGGC said the ward was a general ward and did not need a specialist ventilation system. But the notice has angered critics.
Scottish Labour health spokeswoman Monica Lennon said: ‘This is another worrying development at the troubled Queen Elizabeth University Hospital and it’s vital that NHSGGC cooperates fully with the Health and Safety Executive to ensure full compliance with this improvement notice.
‘SNP Health Secretary Jeane Freeman has put her trust in the leadership of NHSGGC despite the valid concerns of patients and families and ultimately the buck stops with her. She must not take any chances with patient safety.’
It comes after Miss Freeman halted the opening of the Royal Hospital for Children and Young People in Edinburgh after checks revealed the ventilation in its critical care unit did not meet national guidelines.
NHSGGC chief executive Jane Grant said: ‘We are working with the Government to do everything necessary to remedy the situation.’
A Scottish Government spokesman said: ‘We have been clear that we expect the board to address any identified breaches as a matter of urgency and provide detailed evidence to demonstrate that remedial action has been taken.’
‘Another worrying development’